Paved Paradise
by DWH
Summary: Bryce Onasi gets a chance to visit his childhood home, and is met with a little more than he bargained for. Companion piece to Second Chances.


I couldn't believe it when I heard Telos was interested in negotiating with the Jedi.

I always told people I was too young to remember. I was only three years old when we moved away, after all. For the most part, people seemed to believe me. My sisters didn't, of course. I don't think my mother did, either. Dad might've believed me, but I could never be sure. Not that it really matters, none of us could go back even if we wanted to.

It's still in my memories- the breeze off the shores of the renewed oceans, the sunlight creating golden threads as it danced through the orchards, the smell of freshly-picked sunfruit. Those are the sights and sounds I associate with _home_, even though I haven't been there in the last sixteen years. We moved to Alderaan, a pleasant enough planet. I learned to love the grassy plains, the houses built into the cliffs, and the beautiful swirling architecture, but it never felt like home.

We were born on Telos. On Citadel Station, during one of the nastier battles during the Jedi Civil War. Mum tells us that we have the Jedi Exile, Arden Moore to thank for our survival, though I can only guess at what she was like. I've never met her, and I'm not even sure my parents have seen her since that battle. They don't talk about what happened to her after the war. Even during the war, only mum seemed to know her, so I still don't hear about her much. I almost wish I could.

She was responsible for saving Telos. She should've been a hero. Apparently, though, she seemed to be a low-profile kind of person. She slipped off before anyone could find out where she went. Mum always said she had her guesses, but she never said what they were. Whatever the reasons, the Telosians were left with yet another disaster to clean up. Apparently Arden was also "tangentially responsible," as my parents always put it, for the loss of Peragian fuel to the station. It was enough to make people angry.

I've decided that people are decidedly nasty when they get angry.

After a few years of poking, prodding, and general public outcry, my family was forced off of Telos. Not because we'd done anything wrong. Oh no, my father is a hero of the Republic on several counts, and my mother, well… she's a character, all right. Peacenik, local supplier of organic foodstuffs, that sort of thing. Of course, she fights if she has to, but she's got a strange knack for avoiding conflict.

I'm still trying to figure out why this was a bad thing.

On an intellectual level, I get it. A Sith Lord had nearly destroyed the planet, and there's a lot of people in the galaxy who just can't see the difference between a Jedi and a Sith anymore. They needed a scapegoat, and we were it. We had to pack up our bags, leave the orchards, and move our lives elsewhere. Dad still had enough friends in the military that he was compensated nicely for the move, but it was the principle of the matter. We were relatively happy on Alderaan, but it was never home.

And then the Jedi decided to try to negotiate with Telos. I was surprised, certainly, though I don't know why I should have been. Master Mical, the head of the Jedi High Council, was a part of the whole adventure with the Exile, and worked for my dad as well. He was always very kind to us, so I guess it makes sense for him to try to make peace with our homeworld. It's just his nature to attempt to reconcile people. He's got a talent for it, too. I was certainly hopeful that he would be able to pull it off.

I was among the volunteers to go. My sisters weren't interested, as they have never enjoyed the political side of anything. Anna was an artist and an idealist- she could never understand the way people bickered. Nevara, on the other hand, took after our dad, and would rather fight than talk. Mum and dad felt it best if they stayed out of it, as they were fairly high-profile in the planet's history. That left me. I mean, I thought _someone_ from our family should go. It was our _home._ And I don't mind negotiations. I'm probably the only one, come to it.

So off we went. We were a small group, representing Jedi from different regions of the galaxy. Commander D.W. Hollingford, or Commander Hollie as she insisted we call her, was our commanding officer. She seemed to be perpetually frazzled by one thing or another, but she was always professional, and usually kind. A few members of the team were put off by her sometimes snarky comments, but as snarky as Commander Hollie could be, I was used to it. My mother raised us on a healthy diet of sarcasm, so the verbal fencing that inevitably ensued was a small touch of home aboard an unfamiliar ship.

Arrival on the planet was… different than I thought it would be. My memories as a three-year-old are somewhat fuzzy, I'll admit. It was nothing like I remembered, though. So much more of the planet had been restored. Almost all of it, actually. People were living on the surface, and not just to help out with the Restoration Project. There were schools, hospitals, businesses, everything. Not quite the pristine landscape I'd left behind.

But the smell- my first breath of Telosian air upon debarking made me feel more at home than I'd felt in the last sixteen years of my life. Something about being there just _felt_ right. I'm sure I had a ridiculously silly grin on my face the entire time. I wanted nothing more than to run and find my old home.

I was given that opportunity, after a couple of weeks. I'm sure it was just a courtesy, as most of the officials there seemed to hold an embedded distrust for the Jedi. However, the Onasi name still carried a good reputation with it, so I was granted a speeder and a map to find the farm. Fortunately, it was within a couple of hours of where we were staying. I didn't know what exactly to expect, but I must admit I was floored when I finally found our home.

It had been leveled.

I closed my eyes, straining to remember what should have been there. It was the time of year when the golden leaves of the sunfruit trees would rain down on the ground, a glorious carpet where my sisters and I would play. The light would dance between them as they fell. We'd run through the falling leaves, trying to dance with the light. And when we'd run in circles so much as to collapse from dizziness, our parents would come out, pick us up, and carry us back inside, where they'd give us warm mugs of cider and tell stories. Mum was always a storyteller, she never told the same one twice unless we asked. Some of them were true stories, some of them were made up. We never cared, as long as it was interesting.

Reaching out, I could still feel the barest traces of the warmth and laughter that had made this spot my home. I could still smell the breeze coming in from the ocean, and the wind still ruffled my hair. But when I opened my eyes, the carefully constructed illusion of my childhood was gone.

In its place stood a line of shops. A speeder repair station, a restaurant, a couple of clothing stores. And lots of parking space. None of the trees remained, there was only duracrete. I'm sure some of the patrons noticed my forlorn stares. They didn't understand. This wasn't their home. I wanted to leave, to scream, to do something. Anything, really. But I was completely numb.

So numb, in fact, that I didn't notice when someone came up behind me.

"Well, young Onasi, I knew I'd find you here eventually." I started to turn to see who was speaking, but the voice came back harshly- "No hasty moves, there. If your hands so much as twitch in the direction of that lightsaber of yours, I'll put a blaster bolt through your head before you can even think about screaming."

I froze. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Nevara was the fighter, not me. Unfortunately, my options seemed somewhat slim. I could feel the weight of my lightsaber leave my side, and my mysterious assailant quickly slapped stun cuffs on my wrists.

"Now, if you'll be so kind as to just follow me, I won't shoot you. Yet."

I was unarmed, alone, and at a severe disadvantage. Hardly seeing a point in protesting, I figured I didn't have much of a choice but to follow.

For the first time since arriving on Telos, I fervently wished I had never come back home.


End file.
